Last Friday night the New England Patriots had their preseason dress rehearsal against the Carolina Panthers. It was a bit concerning that in the last game for the starters in the preseason that New England's offense was only able to muster up three points in an eventual 25-14 loss to Carolina.
The offensive line was part of the reason for a struggling offense for the Patriots. Though Carolina still has one of the best defenses in the league, that doesn't mean the o-line gets a pass for failing to execute.
Let's take a look at some of the inconsistencies from the offensive line against the Panthers.
The first third-down play for the Patriots on offense gets blown up because of the offensive line. The play is designed for James White to get to the first down marker and work his way towards the sideline to move the chains. The defensive line did nothing fancy, but it is still able to get to the quarterback.
Trent Brown gets beat right off the line of scrimmage by the defensive end who beats him to the edge and gets right in Brady’s face. Because of this, Brady has to throw off his back foot and brace for the hit coming from the defender, causing the ball to sail towards White. This allows the cornerback to gain enough ground to tackle White immediately as he catches the ball just short of the first down marker.
What should be a routine play for the offensive line in terms of pass protecting gets blown up because Brown’s footwork is very slow out of his two-point stance.
The Patriots run a two-tight end single-back formation which is going to be a run play for Jeremy Hill. Right when the ball is snapped, center David Andrews immediately gets pushed into the backfield by Carolina’s defensive tackle. This causes Jeremy Hill to gain only two yards on the play.
Andrews’ inability to maintain his man at the line of scrimmage gives Hill no running room when he gets the ball and leads to a third-and-long on the second offensive series for New England.
A dive play for Mike Gillislee gets blown up in the backfield because of some great linebacker play by the Panthers. However, it was the responsibility of right guard Shaq Mason to contain the A-gap if anyone were to try and penetrate it. Mason left the double team too late and was unable to get his body in front of the linebacker, causing a three-yard loss on the play.
It is hard to critique Mason on this play because the linebacker sniffed out the run play immediately, but he still needs to show quicker awareness on the play regardless of the fast read by the defender.
I wanted to save the worst for last. A run play for Mike Gillislee turns into a loss of yards. La’Adrian Waddle lets his man into the backfield, but I am not going to criticize Waddle for two reasons - 1) the defender dove at his legs and there is only so much he can do about that 2) Waddle is replacing Marcus Cannon for the meantime while Cannon recovers from an injury and will not be a part of the starting rotation during the regular season.
The worst part of this play is the fact that David Andrews and Joe Thuney both miss their cut blocks. This allowed the defenders to go right by them and make the tackle in the backfield. A cut block is supposed to allow the running back some time to get upfield on that specific play, but because Andrews and Thuney missed their assignments Gillislee had no chance to gain any yards, let alone get back to the line of scrimmage.
WHAT WE LEARNED
The Patriots offensive starters were only in the game for three series which took place in the first half of the game. Besides the four plays shown, the offensive line play was solid and they gave Brady time to throw in the pocket along with giving the running backs some room to run.
Carolina’s defense is still one of the best in the league, which is worth noting. But the o-line needs to hunker down on their run block assignments to keep a balanced game plan in place for New England. If the Patriots cannot keep a consistent run game intact, it makes their offense transparent and could lead to trouble when trying to keep 41-year old Tom Brady protected in the pocket.
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